Hey, you! Yes, you there! Are you always on the lookout for music that’s more experimental, weirder, and more disarming than ever? Here, meet Vincent Bergeron, a guy from Victoriaville, Quebec. Nah, it’s my pleasure, really! – For several years now, the music of Vincent Bergeron (who seems to have dropped his real name in favor of the Berger Rond alias) has been the most disconcerting I know. Each piece by him is an incredibly destabilizing construction of notes, chords, and lyrics that somehow should fit together – and most probably do, in the fifth or sixth dimension, the problem being that our ears only perceive three. Audiomachie/Logomachie picks up where Le Savant devait arriver avant songeur had left: key role for singer Viveka Eriksson, a predominance of strings, melodies even more deconstructed than before, music even more monolithically hermetic than before. So what am I to do with such a UFO? Listen to it, again and again. For either Bergeron is a total madman or he’s a genius hearing music in more dimensions than most of us can. Either way, it’s worthy digging into…and worth a certain amount of admiration.[Below: “Bruissement de griserie”, a track from the album. You’ll find more samples here.]

It’s all in the subtitle: “British Pop Psych and Other Flavours 1965-1970.” Mostly psychedelic pop, actually, with an emphasis on pop. Lots of Beatles soundalikes and derivative songs. A nice selection, though hardly essential.

Second Sublime Frequencies compilation devoted to Thai pop, that strange hybrid of South-Eastern traditions and Western influences. Microtonal singing full of flexible, graceful, occasionally acrobatic inflections; driving beats, mouth organs blending in with electric guitars; and so much joy and carefree spirit. Lots of quality too (a lot more, in fact, than in the Thai Beat a Go-Go series, which had opted for the ridicule aspect of Thai pop, with its Elvis wannabes and other Western bastardized pastiches). First-rate otherworldliness, and a repertoire that’s totally unknown outside of South-East Asia.